Famed Camden author releases new book

Camden’s mistress of mystery is back Tuesday with the eighth book in her Rizzoli and Isles series, just in time for the July 12 debut of the TNT series of the same name.

Gerritsen’s fans have been waiting two long years, since 2008’s “The Keepsake,” for a new novel, and she doesn’t disappoint with “Ice Cold.” It’s well worth the wait.

The novel largely centers on Dr. Maura Isles, forensic pathologist in the Boston medical examiner’s office. Those who know her professionally have dubbed her “The Queen of the Dead” for her controlled, stoic demeanor. This new release shows what happens when she tries to shake things up.

Maura’s illicit affair with a priest is unraveling when she leaves home for a pathologists’ conference in Wyoming. While there, she meets up with an old school acquaintance and goes on a spur-of-the-moment ski trip with him and some of his friends. Things go downhill from there.

Maura’s party finds themselves trapped by a snowstorm in an abandoned village up in the mountains, cut off from civilization. But there’s someone else there as well (dum, dum, dum).

When a burning wreck is found in the Wyoming mountains, Maura’s friends are contacted and told that her remains have been found. But things don’t add up for her friend, Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli, and she and her FBI agent husband, Gabriel Dean, keep digging.

In “Ice Cold,” Gerritsen takes readers inside the world of isolated religious communities, examining the personalities within such cults and their effects on the outside world nearby.

Gerritsen has lost nothing during her time away from publishing, as “Ice Cold” is as full of twists and turns as the Wyoming mountain roads on which the characters drive. There’s a surprise around every corner, and that’s the way her readers like it.

Book Signing

Tess Gerritsen will sign copies of her new book, “Ice Cold,” at 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 29, at The Owl & Turtle Bookshop in Camden.